Right on, soundmeister. Reading your input made me think about how they fit lenses for glasses, at least the 'old fashioned way' They change the lenses up and down in power until YOU decide it is right. Where is the BIAS in that? Should every lens change give you a perceived improvement? Same with audio.

I buy my specs from the local $2.00 shop, and for the princely sum of $12.00 I got 6 pairs that cover the whole range of powers available.
Once I worked out which ones suit me (different ones for general or detail close up work) I went back and got some more.
This way I always have spares on hand to cover those accidents like getting sat on and no paying some 'expert'.

i think the phrase "can´t trust your ears" is a bit misleading at this point.

Of course every human sense can be fooled, but obviously we all learn to deal with these fooling mechanism, because otherwise we would not be able to live in the real world.
So, up to a certain degree Joshua is right, because he might be able to learn to "hear the real thing" because he might have learned to deal with several bias mechanisms.

But of course, you can´t know if you can trust in Joshua´s perception, but that would not change after having Joshua in a controlled test, because it is still Joshua´s ears/perception that provide the test results.

So, you have to be very carefully to sort out all the possible confounding issues and to control Joshua´s perception in the test situation.

But, if all controls give consistent data and you get test results in which you trust (under the constraints of statistical and scientific reasoning) it might be the same results that Joshua got right from the beginning.

Yes, I'm here! And did read you previous post to this one. I agree with you. I think the ear does a remarkable job at detecting very small differences. This I've learned from my own experience with extreme sound sensitivity.

Sure the ear can be fooled but that doesn't mean these differences don't exist. I don't understand the angst against those who trust there ears. And don't understand fight for lesser quality recording formats or equipment.

But, so it goes.

So are you saying that you think if I listen to "Hell in a Bucket" at an SPL of130 db I will be able to hear the difference between the JC-1, JC-2, and Blowtorch preamplifiers? Afterwards will I still be able to hear anything? Will I still want to?

No. If life was that simple we could solve all problems by popular vote, and bad politicians would never be elected. Remember, the 'wisdom of the crowd' gave us Windows, IE, VHS, a certain German chancellor, a credit/debt crisis. People are easily swayed by advertising and empty promises, then having made their choice they for a while sincerely believe they were right until an overwhelming weight of evidence shows that they were wrong, and some still believe they were right even then.

Can we vote on the mass of the Higgs boson, the mechanism for dark energy, and the explanation for global warming?

It is a feature of capitalism that the best product rarely makes the most money. Most people prefer popular junk to unpopular quality. Just watch commercial TV in almost any country! As well as the placebo effect (which few can rise above, despite their own fond imaginings!) there is a strong herd effect too.

No. If life was that simple we could solve all problems by popular vote, and bad politicians would never be elected. Remember, the 'wisdom of the crowd' gave us Windows, IE, VHS, a certain German chancellor, a credit/debt crisis. People are easily swayed by advertising and empty promises, then having made their choice they for a while sincerely believe they were right until an overwhelming weight of evidence shows that they were wrong, and some still believe they were right even then.

That's why I said over an extended time. The wisdom of crowds, balances out the biases that you talk about & coalesce into a consensus opinion - it has a neat way of self-cancelling these biases

Quote:

Can we vote on the mass of the Higgs boson, the mechanism for dark energy, and the explanation for global warming?

It is a feature of capitalism that the best product rarely makes the most money. Most people prefer popular junk to unpopular quality. Just watch commercial TV in almost any country! As well as the placebo effect (which few can rise above, despite their own fond imaginings!) there is a strong herd effect too.

I think you might be confused about capitalism - it is not a level playing field for everyone & the best product does not always (probably seldom) capture the greatest share of the market. What you are describing is consumerism & the attempt at manipulation of buyers choices.